Honey is a great prebiotic food and reaches the large intestine intact allowing the good bacteria found here to use it to make essential nutrients to help sustain a healthy self.

On top of this, honey also has varying concentrations in polyphenols (polyphenols are thought to help reduce heart disease and cancer) boosting the body’s natural defences and a recent study shows that eating honey daily raises levels of disease-fighting antioxidants in the blood. It’s generally a healthier choice than sugar to sweeten food as it has no refined sugar, and any you have leftover can be applied to the skin – honey has antibacterial properties helping to heal and soothe scars, scratches, rashes and redness.

Raw honey has the highest concentration of pollen too:

In a 224 g jar of raw honey there’ll be between 500,000 and 1,900,000 pollen grains!

The bees need pollen to feed their young as it contains amino acids: the building blocks of life that only plants can make from the power of the sun. Bees have 10 amino acids that they need for a balanced diet, oilseed rape and white clover contain all of these amino acids in their pollen - others have some of them which is why bees need a diverse diet.